The Shade: Of Man and Monsters
by ixnay0002
Summary: From the pages of Starman comes a "Time's Past" story of the Shade and his time in the Opal City of 1884.


It strikes me as sad how quickly a man will judge his fellow to be a monster.

I myself have been referred to as such with an alarming frequency, and while I make no attempt to prove such an epitaph false (for I have indeed performed many an action that could be deemed "monstrous") it angers me how quickly the common man will jump to demonize those he does not understand or believe beneath him. While I am far from a champion of the underclass, it has been my experience that those decried as abominations by society are far overshadowed by the darkened morals of the wealthy and privileged. Far be it from me to give credence to the "misunderstood brute with a heart of gold" cliche, but I learned long ago that while poverty and misfortune may breed desperate acts they are a far cry from the heinous crimes hidden behind the doors of prestige.

Brian Savage, legendary sheriff of Opal City and the only man worthy of my genuine friendship in the near two centuries I have strode the Earth, had faced his own such stigma during his lifetime. A white man raised by Native Americans, Savage spent a number of years under the names Ke-Woh-No-Tay ("He Who is Less Than Human", so very charming) and Scalphunter, fighting for the rights of his adopted people while those of his own race deemed him as that which his christened name had branded him - a "savage" in heart, mind, and deed.

In the year 1884, Savage came to Opal City and became its greatest lawman, taking the mantle of sheriff in order to tame the wild and violent streets of the growing Port O' Souls. I had made my first visit to the Opal in 1880, and while I found many things to love about its streets and spires it wasn't until 1891 - after Savage had established himself as the unflinching enforcement of justice - that it became my home.

Its been said that Savage came upon Opal City like unto a force of nature, destroying with righteous vengeance any that dared interrupt the peace he had fought so hard to attain in his years as Scalphunter. It was during his second year as sheriff that three strangers came to our city, three that challenged his attempts to keep safe the citizens of Opal.

One stranger was a kindred spirit to Savage, a gunfighter from the 20th century thrown into the past.

Another was an immortal such as myself, a purveyor of machinations darker even than mine own.

And the third...the third was what normal God fearing men would call "monster", yet he possessed such strength of will that all quaked in fear while in his presence.

The accounts of what transpired in 1885 were stricken from all records by order of Savage himself, a conspiracy to keep hidden a series of events that were decided to be too unsettling for the citizens Brian had sworn to protect. I am the only living citizen remaining from that time, and as such it is only in my memory and through my words that this story exists.

This is a true accounting of those events, a true tale of times past...

It began, this bizarre sequence of events, in the fields of Turk County - then known as Dead Turk County, which rests to this day outside the city's southwestern limits. Flat plains fit for naught but farming are what encompass the Turk Lands, the sparse habitation of the space leading to many a dire secret amongst the till-workers and their seedlings. While Opal proper had its fair share of murder and theft, the crimes originating out of Turk County were by all accounts of a much darker, stranger variety.

It was at the edge of the city, where the urban sprawl ceased as it slammed against the open fields of the Turk Lands, that Brian had bid for me to meet him. He and I shared a unique companionship, a free sharing of information betwixt us that kept one another aware of the criminal endeavors inside the borders of our home. This day, an October day I recall, appropriate for its proximity to the Devil's Night and Witches' Sabbath, was a day like any other upon my appearance at Savage's side in the afternoon sun.

It would end as a day like no other, this I assure you.

"Shade," Savage greeted me with a spat of tobacco launched from his lips, his Stetson hat pulled down to keep his eyes from the harsh light of a mid-day sun.

"Good tidings, Brian," I replied as I carefully surveyed where to plant my feet in the field, "pray tell I haven't endangered my shoes with the threat of manure just to take in the sunshine."

""Up yonder," Savage said (ignoring my snide asides as per usual, he "havin' no time for dandy words" and all) "the caravan."

I squinted my eyes, spying the trail of wagons slowly heading our way across the plains of Turk. The sides of the wagons were painted with garish colors, evoking sensations of the most reviled creature that walked the earth - by which I refer, of course, to the thrice-damned profession of the _clown_. "A carnival," I remarked, "how very pedestrian. Surely the citizens of the Opal would know better than to give such a low-brow sideshow their time, let alone their money?"

"Got me an hombre in the lock-up," he answered, trying to maintain his stone-faced facade despite the smirk I noticed just barely creeping up the corner of his mouth, "caused himself quite a ruckus this mornin'. Claims he's come t' warn the Opal o' some kinda monster party headin' this direction."

"Monsters?" I inquired.

"That ain't the crazy part by half," my friend continued, turning his back against the wind to light his rolled cigarette, "this feller says he's from the _future_..."

Let me tell you about Greg Saunders.

"You let me outta here 'fore I feel forced ta kick seven shades o' shit outta you."

Trust me, at the time the pun was very much not intentional.

Saunders was a frightful sight that afternoon, sitting in the jail cell with his cowboy togs drenched from the impromptu delousing given him by the deputies upon admission, his normally pristine white hat mildewed into a hazy tan coloration. The only part of him that did not appear filthy, from his dung-crusted boots to the 6-day bead stubble on his jaw, was the scarlet red bandana tied around his neck. When he approached the station the night previous said bandana was pulled up over his mouth and nose - his mask-like disguise mistaken by the deputies as the uniform of a bandit pistolero.

He was very much the proto-typical gunfighter, from his dress to his speech to his very mannerisms, undoubtedly a product of the times. What Saunders claimed however, something I know today to be far from the fanciful tale we believed him to be spinning at the time, was that he was a man from some seventy years in the future. As the crime-busting Vigilante, he was a member of the wonderfully-titled Seven Soldiers of Victory (I so love when the normally drab and dull heroes allow the theatrics of their profession to shine through), a collection of heroes who during one of their many battles with evil became scattered throughout history. The Vigilante had found himself deposited in the time of gunslingers and outlaws, a place he felt very much at home I would imagine. It would be another year or so before the Justice League rescued Saunders from his temporal exile - and of course, at the time Brian nor I were aware of these facts. Regardless, I found myself fascinated with his tale.

"It disappoints me greatly to see how little the realm of fashion has advanced so far in the future," I quipped, making notice of his cowboy dressings, "I certainly hope we are not living at the pinnacle of civilization."

"I know you," Saunders said from his spot on the cell's bench, hunched over with his elbows resting on his knees, his fingers being cracked one by one. "The Shade, right? You fight the Flash in Keystone City, a fancy pants with shadow powers."

I cocked him a curious eyebrow and removed the hat from atop my head. "You may call me Mr. Black," I corrected with a gentleman's bow. In truth, his accuracy concerning my abilities had unnerved me, even if I knew not at the time what a "Flash" could possibly be nor why I would want to engage in fisticuffs with one.

"Listen, amigo," Savage interrupted, "you stop fillin' my ears with your storytellin' and fill me in on the reason you've come to my town, maybe I'll think about turnin' you loose."

"I've come from Gotham City," Saunders answered, "not my usual stomping grounds, but a place I felt like visiting. Came across a foul plot o' murder while I was there and the trail bade me follow the killer's here to Opal City."

"Why should I give a rat's ass if some hombre in Gotham caught a case o' bein' dead?" Savage responded. He then took the time to light a cigarette, which he offered to the grateful prisoner before lighting up another for himself.

"A feller name o' Cyrus Gold disappeared in Slaughter Swamp just outside a Gotham," Saunders continued, "and I learned he was the last in a series o' people disappearin' all over the city the last week or so. But they were all lowlifes and hobos so no one noticed or cared, until the wealthy Gold came up missing. The killer moved on before anyone could connect 'em to the crimes, anyone but me that is."

For once I found myself silent, no pithy remarks jumping from my lips while Saunders told his tale to a captive audience of two. It was Brian's nature to question what was told to him, but I could tell by the tone of his questions that something about the stranger's words had hit true, not a hint of disbelief in the lawman's demeanor. Perhaps the two felt the connection of kindred spirits, its not for me to hypothesize.

"These killers wouldn't be travelin' via caravan now, would they?" Savage asked, though I'm sure he already knew the answer.

"A carnival," Greg confirmed as he took a final draw off the bequeathed cigarette, "run by a guy name o' Melmoth. A dozen people disappeared from Gotham streets and no bodies turned up afterwards. This Melmoth is usin' the corpses as slave labor, seen it with my own eyes before they pulled up stakes and moved on."

"You're saying that the dead walk," I finally chimed in, "is this Mister Melmoth a student of necromancy?"

"You scoff at me claimin' to be from the future," Saunders said, "but I start talkin' 'bout zombies and neither one of you give even a blink o' surprise?"

"I've witnessed things that would cause the strictest country preacher to question his faith in God," I answered. Then I smiled. "In fact, I myself am one of those things."

"Seen plenty o' hoodoo myself, too," Brian agreed, "killed me some o' them "walkin' dead" not a year gone, I remember."

The sheriff walked to the cell door and inserted the iron key, turning the lock and swinging open the cage door. "You a lawman in your time, Greg?"

"Not quite," the prisoner-no-longer replied as he stood and placed his off-white hat atop his head, "they called me a _Vigilante_."

By this time, now late in the eve of a setting sun, the approaching carnival had halted its eastern progression and established its crude system of roots on the outskirts of Dead Turk County, just as the farming plains began to give way to the industrialized spires of Opal True. It was at this twilight hour that our plan of investigation and confrontation began; while Sheriff Savage took a private audience with the troupe's ringmaster Melmoth, Saunders and I would creep through the shadows of the caravan in search of answers - _answers_, yes, and _monsters_.

While I was not present for the conversation that was held, the following is an extrapolation from the account given me by Savage some time later. Pardon me if time has altered or otherwise distorted my memory of the exchange. No one is perfect, though I admit to being as close to that goal as inhumanly possible (and yes, I confess to having chuckled slightly while writing that sentence).

"Welcome, Sheriff Savage," my friend was greeted by the ubiquitous Mister Melmoth, "come and sit so I may alleviate the fears that so often journey along with us in our covered wagons!"

Brian gave a description of this Melmoth chap that, had I known him for being anything but honest and straight-forward at all times, I would have scarcely believed. The man, whose features did little to betray what his age might have been, was thin and lithe, almost androgynous. No hair was visible on his head save for a pencil-thin moustache running above his lip and two black slashes above his eyes. His flesh was luminescent, possibly even transparent if seen through a lamp light, and colored by the palest of blue hues. His features were striking, yes, and odd as well - but Savage had seen odder still, and showed no reaction to his host's unique appearance.

"What fears might those be, Mister Melmoth?" Savage asked, accepting the seat offered on the opposite of the ringmaster's desk. They were meeting in the troupe's largest car, which was lavish in style and comfort - silk adorning nearly every item of furniture. All a bit too fancy and extravagant for one such as Brian.

"Why fear of the _unknown_, of course," he answered, "fear of what wickedness may come in the bellies of our black carriages. I can assure you, Sheriff, that we bring nothing but entertainment for any man, woman, boy, or girl of your fair metropolis; we bring a distraction from the humdrum banality of their everyday lives. We exist to make men merry!"

"That a fact?" Savage answered. His hands were kept to his side as he sat, keeping the potential for gunplay forthright in his mind and fingers. "So if I was to say something 'bout all the people that disappeared while you was in Gotham, I reckon you wouldn't know nothin' 'bout that?"

Melmoth's demeanor changed not one jot with Brian's insinuation, if anything his ever-present grin slid back into a sort of sneer. "I see you're not one for the verbal joust, eh Sheriff? Straight and to the point, I find that refreshing - too many of your species believe in spitting out a dozen words when two will suffice. I suppose you're here to ask about Slaughter Swamp then, aren't you?"

"That's one question outta many," Savage replied, taking time to light himself a cigarette as Melmoth reclined back in his leather desk chair.

"Centuries ago," Melmoth explained, "my people lost their Cauldron of Rebirth in the place now known as Slaughter Swamp, its liquid of life eternal leaking out into the marsh. Any that find their lives extinguished in that hellish bog will find themselves brought back from the rot as a near-mindless beast. I created the first soldiers of an army, my force of Grundy-Men that I will use to claim this charcoal world for my own. Except for poor Cyrus Gold, of course, whose body we couldn't seem to find after he staggered deeper into the swamp, his life ebbing with each step he took."

Savage nodded along with Melmoth's words, his fingers tapping lightly on the grip of his pistol.

"Truthfully," Melmoth continued, "I wouldn't have bothered to stop in your city, wanting instead to simply pass it by in favor of greener pastures. Then I learned of the singing cowboy that had followed us from Gotham and decided to provide my carnival folk a little entertainment of their own."

It was around that time that the two men heard a blood-curdling scream ripped from the throat of something that couldn't possibly have been human (though surprisingly it was all-too human once upon a time). "Ah," Melmoth said, "That would be your companions meeting their grisly fate. I suppose you will want to arrest me now, read me my rights and all that?"

Savage sat relaxed in the chair, his left hand holding a cigarette to his lips and his left leg crossed over his right. The only thing that moved was his right hand, whipping the pistol free from its holster on his right hip so quickly that it blurred to the eye. The bullet exploded from the six-gun and impacted against Melmoth's skull, sending him careening backward out of his chair and into the corner of the trailer. The pistol was back in Brian's holster and another draw of the cigarette taken by the time the villain's body came to a rest in an awkward heap on the floor.

"The dead don't got rights."

For the companion piece of this recollection, we must turn back time's hands to the start of the meeting between Savage and Melmoth. These events, I'm elated to state, are guaranteed to be accurate due to my personal eye witness account. While Savage entered the trailer, Saunders and I appeared via my shadow on the opposite end of the camp, using stealth to infiltrate what was sure to be a place fraught with danger. I had long been aware of my immortality and resistance to harm by this point, so the thrill for myself came not in the fear of injury but in the hope of experiencing something of interest that I could add to my life's memoirs. Obviously, given that you are reading this now, I did _indeed_ find something of interest.

We crept cautiously, Saunders and I, though my own caution was reserved merely for his benefit. With his red bandana pulled over his lower face and his two revolvers in hand, the Vigilante looked every bit the fearsome gunfighter that such inspiring legends were writ about. I learned later that Saunders made his living as a singing country star, "the Prairie Troubadour" they called him! I like to think his experiences that night led to the creation of a ballad or three, such a thing would make me smile.

It only took a few moments of stealth and guile for the obviousness to hit us; there were no living souls amongst the trailers and tents of the closed down carnival. They'd not had time to set up anything but the barest of huts in the brief time since their arrival, but it surprised us both that we encountered not a single man at that relatively early nighttime hour. We'd come close to declaring the camp abandoned until we heard the faintest of moans emitted from a nearby trailer.

Saunders took the lead while I stepped back and watched, amusing myself with a twirl of my cane. He prepared to swing open the cart's door, pistol at the ready, when the twist of the story became unveiled. Massive fists broke through the wood planks, thick fingers grasping wildly for the Vigilante's shirt. Saunders back-peddled, falling backward as the creature emerged - nay, _exploded_ \- from the trailer. Its skin was chalk-white, blue veins pumping not blood but a type of bile beneath its flesh, with a wet sheen coating it like a film. Saunders fired a round from each pistol as he scampered back toward me, but the bullets hit with a wet, deadening thud on the monster's chest. It let fly a chilling bellow of a scream, its head thrown back in a cry not of pain but of pure unbridled _rage_.

"Shade, do something god damn it!" the Vigilante commanded as he pulled himself back up onto his feet, fearing that his own brand of justice by way of the bullet would be useless against such an abomination. I stepped forward, the shadows already beginning to swirl around me, when a voice that felt like thunder stopped me in mid stride.

Saunders and I both turned to look back over our shoulders, our attention momentarily diverted from the hulking brute that stalked toward us. The creature behind us captivated our attention as it approached, unbelievably bigger than the first monster. Its skin was the green color of desiccation, and a zigzag pattern of stitching ran over its bare arms and across its broad forehead. "Down!" it commanded as it raised its handgun from the folds of its trenchcoat, an order Saunders and I happily followed.

A burst of steam squealed from the small exhaust pipe atop the pistol, and a bullet flew from its barrel. It collided with the chalk-white monster, leaving a melon-sized hole as it exited through the back of its skull, sending black gobs of an oxygen-starved brain onto the wall behind it. It fell dead to the ground, sent back to the arms of death for a second time, and in triumph the newcomer monster holstered its pistol and turned its attention back toward Saunders and I.

"The Grundy is dead," the creature explained, "but there are more to take its place."

"What in hell are you?" Saunders asked, phrasing his inquiry with far less tact than I felt necessary.

"I have no name to call my own," it answered as it crouched over the executed zombie (sigh, a term I use for brevity's sake only), "so I claimed the name of my damned creator."

It stood with lightning flashing in the sky behind him. "Men call me _Frankenstein_."

"Frankenstein, eh?" I asked while pushing the brim of my hat up with the tip of my cane to better view the moonlit monster. "I hesitate to ask if anyone bothered to tell poor Mary Shelly that her work should be re-categorized as non-fiction."

"I have tracked Melmoth across this world," the creature spoke, surprising me with his eloquence, "and it is my intention to murder him. My father, the Doctor Frankenstein, is awaiting Melmoth in the pits of Hades - and it will be the edge of my sword that sends him there."

"I've seen some queer shit in my life," Saunders declared as he investigated the still-twitching Grundy, "and believe it or not, I've seen this here fella before, in the 1940s. His name's Solomon Grundy, and he can't be dead if he's alive in the future, can he?"

"You presume that this Solomon is a singular creature," Frankenstein explained, "but where there is one Grundy there are almost certainly others. This is Melmoth's plan, to infest your country with his army of Grundy zombie-men. Once this world has fallen he will turn his gaze once more upon Summer's End and the kingdom that had once been his before his brood mare deposed and exiled him."

"Are you saying that this Melmoth is more than just a man?" I asked, fearful of the answer - afraid not for myself, of course, but for my friend who was presently confronting the circus master alone.

"Melmoth is of the Sheeda," Frankenstein answered, "and if left unchecked he will burn this world to ash."

"Anyone ever told you that even the worst hombre gunslinger in the west would have the common courtesy to die when someone shoots him?"

Brian Savage was not one for witty repartee (though that's not to say he didn't have a sense of humor, dry and droll as it may have been), but what other reaction could one such as he have when faced with a man that had taken a gunshot to the face and was still smiling afterward? While Saunders and I were making our acquaintances with the Frankenstein Monster, Savage was learning that Mister Melmoth was not one to die easily, if at all.

Unlike most mortals, I had learned that Savage was never in fear of a fight with seemingly overwhelming forces. I could go into battle with him at my back and never once worry about whether he could hold his own, or if I would deem it necessary to rescue him from danger. So, imagine my surprise when the three of us - Frankenstein in the lead, followed by the Vigilante and I - approached Melmoth's manager wagon to find a hole blown through its side. A hole made by my friend the sheriff as Melmoth threw him through the window. Brian had landed in an adjacent tent, his landing thankfully cushioned though the force had still rendered him half past consciousness.

"Come one, come all," Melmoth announced as he stepped through the hasty exit he'd made with my friend's flailing body, "to the greatest show on Earth!"

"Melmoth!" the patchwork Monster shouted as he raised his steam-pistols forward, the barrels ejecting their massive ordinance. The crooked smile never left Melmoth's pale, pasty face as the bullets blew several holes in his torso; the force of the blows staggered him, to be sure, but his advance toward the incoherent Scalphunter continued unimpeded.

"We have a problem," Saunders said as he pulled my attention to our back, where a lumbering phalanx of Grundy-Men was shambling toward us.

"If I may, Sir Monster," I said, placing a hand on the brute's shoulder as I moved past him, "help our beleaguered Vigilante against the simpletons. I shall deal with Melmoth personally."

Frankenstein grunted a reply and waded into the army of Grundies, the broad sword pulled from his back to cleave way a path to the struggling Greg Saunders, who learned that the bullets from his six-shooters were less than ineffectual against the creatures. Saunders had told us that a dozen men were taken from Gotham, but it was obvious from the sheer number of abominations advancing forward that Melmoth had been gathering his carnival troupe for quite a long time. I took one last glance at the two allies at my back - seeing the Vigilante with a lasso around a Grundy's neck, riding it like a bucking steer - and then stepped one foot in front of the other. "Mister Melmoth," I said as I stepped toward the blue-blooded ringmaster (and I mean that in the literal sense, the bile oozing from his wounds was blue as the sky), "step away from my friend before I force you to ingest my spat."

Melmoth stopped with his fingers at the recovering Savage's throat, craning his neck to look at me over his shoulder. "I know who you are," he said as he tossed Brian back into the demolished tent, "you are the one that became bound with the black ink that night in London dire. You are an immortal..."

"Then you know enough to fear my wrath," I interjected.

"An immortal," Melmoth continued, "just like me. You and I are two of a very select breed, Dark One. Brethren born centuries apart yet equal in our coming years when all we've encountered have turned to dust. What care you for the lives of these sheep when you have so little in common with them? What makes you their champion when they are little more than a shade when standing next to you?"

"Oh, I am no champion," I answered with a stifled laugh, "and I care not one jot for the lives of most mortals."

"Then join me on Sheeda Side!" Melmoth offered, slinking back step by step by step as we conversed. Wisely, he was taking my mettle as I was his, and realizing that he would come out wanting. "Assist me and anything you desire shall be yours for the taking!"

"In any other place at any other time," I replied, wondering if he at all noticed how the shadows of his camp were beginning to swell and dance, "I would simply ignore you and be on my way. But you came to my home, you simple fop, and you threatened the only man I call 'friend'. For that, I will see you ended."

"Shade! Shade, for God's sake..." I heard Saunders bellowing out behind me as he and the Monster Frankenstein were being overwhelmed by the onslaught of Grundy-Men.

"You cannot kill me, Darkling," Melmoth countered, "I have replaced by blood with the waters from the Cauldron of Rebirth, my very veins a fountain of youth that guarantees my immortality. You cannot kill me; I march to an end that will never come!"

"Fair enough," I admitted with a smile, "but you shall march on that road alone."

And with that, I released the wraiths from their cage, the demons that come at my beck and call from my inky shadows. Silent as death and quick as mercury they spread throughout the camp, devouring the Grundy-Men that Melmoth had worked so tirelessly to create. The swamp-born brutes shrieked and screamed as my shadow wraiths ripped them asunder, proving that even the dead can feel pain when a sufficient amount was applied. It took only a few moments for the camp to be emptied of the zombies, the ink demons gobbling them up despite their putrid flesh and empty veins. All the while I stood in the center of the storm, my eyes locked with Melmoth's, the smirk on my lips holding steady.

The feeling was delicious. I could have very easily taken Melmoth as well, dragging him to an eternity caged in shadow where he would never again feel the warmth of the sun. Yes, it would have been easy, and the sweeter vengeance by far was to watch as his dreams were destroyed in a blur of black and jet.

When the last Grundy expired, Saunders stood at my back, having collected the now conscious Sheriff Savage. "God damn," Greg muttered, an appropriate phrase for the slaughter he had just witnessed.

Melmoth stood bleeding the moonlight, his caravan demolished and his army dead to the last man. Frankenstein strode forward, sword hefted across his shoulder. There was an undeniable history between the two, and the monster with more soul than the man he towered over deserved his grim satisfaction for whatever wrong Melmoth had caused him in the past. "This could end no other way," Frankenstein stated.

"Each of you shall know Hell," Melmoth spat, his gaze jumping to each of us four in turn, "even if it takes untold centuries."

"Abashed the Devil stood," Frankenstein said as he swung the Sword of Michael, lopping his enemy's head from his shoulders, "and saw how awful goodness is."

The following afternoon, Brian Savage and I once again met in that open field in Turk County where the strange events of the night prior had taken place. Frankenstein had disappeared immediately following Melmoth's execution, returning to his wandering with more monstrosities to destroy along the way. Greg Saunders, the Vigilante, had taken up residence for the week in Opal City's Preston Hotel (named after a young lad whose history is a story all in its own, one that I will tell in time) before making his way back to his beloved Arizona. Savage had left the demolished caravan and mutilated bodies as they were, departing in those early morning hours for his bed and recuperation.

Melmoth's body, which we had left to collect the morning dew, was gone when we returned, severed head and all. Savage hypothesized that Frankenstein had taken the body with him for disposal, but I held little faith in that theory. Melmoth swore vengeance before his beheading, and not even I know of a tried and true way to take the life of an immortal. Whatever the explanation, in the many years since I've yet to experience the wrath of Melmoth's revenge, and neither still did the others who stood with me on that fateful night. Savage, of course, died in 1899 at the hands of a coward; Saunders eventually returned to his true time and is currently living out his remaining days in Los Angeles, a bevy of gold records hanging on his wall; and of Frankenstein, no sightings have been reported.

So perhaps Melmoth truly did die that night. I suppose the mystery will remain until the day he makes his return.

That afternoon in the Turk Lands, Brian and I set fire to the abandoned carnival wagons, razing the field and the Grundy bodies to bitter ash. Savage returned to the city once the flames began to burn, but I lingered for some time, watching the flames lick and caress the plain until they were exhausted. The fire was soon spent, and still I remained, for reasons I no longer recall.

What I _do_ recall, however, is the discovery I made once the flames died down. In the charred remnants of the caravan, nestled snugly in the center of the ashen field, was an amazing sight. Flowers bloomed, more beautiful than I had ever seen, in a single spot of scorched earth. At first I could not explain how the fauna had survived the funeral pyre, but when I crouched down to examine the plants my fingers ran across a slippery, viscous liquid.

_Blue_ liquid; the blood spilled by the wounded immortal Melmoth.

Stepping through my shadows, it took only a moment to gather what I needed from my home and return to the patch of revitalized soil. In a small crystal vial I collected a sample of the blue liquid, which Melmoth had claimed to come from a Cauldron of Rebirth. It pains me to admit my reasons for gathering the sample, but for posterity's sake I must force myself to pen the words. An immortal such as I cannot give his friendship casually, for the pain of outliving a loved one is a pain I refuse to suffer ever again. It was for this reason that I offered the elixir to my friend Brian Savage, and as I dreaded yet expected he refused.

Four years later he was killed, shot in the back by a craven dog named Mayville.

The vial sits to this day on my shelf, a reminder of what could have been. In the century since, no other man has grown close enough to my heart for me to offer the gift of immortality.

That, I am certain, is how it will remain.

**The End**


End file.
